Peer Resources

In the world of "Mute All," that we are currently occupying, we unfortunately miss the opportunity to hear each of our students' voices. Some students may not share out loud with their class, even if they might have in a regular classroom, and others may not be allowed to, depending on how the teacher runs their class. While this can impact students in a variety of ways, it can be a particular challenge with our students learning English, as they are not given the practice of having to actually put the language learning into practice.

To this end, Mr. Don Hayden, a 5th grade ELL teacher at Davidson Elementary School has made a point to use a video response tool called Flipgrid to make sure he hears every student's voice. He has used it in a number of different ways like:

• students voicing predictions about what might happen in a STEM design challenge

• asking and answering questions

• listening to and repeating a teammate's response

• giving each other feedback on how their language sounded

Another strategy he's used with Flipgrid is teaching students to form a sentence stem based on the question, which they write down and practice several times before actually recording.

To be clear, this kind of speaking practice is good for all students, but on both the student and teacher side of working with ELL students, it is essential. The students need to practice using their own voice in the new language so they can apply the skills they're learning. Additionally, they are functionally practicing for the AZELLA language test they will take during the school year to determine if they are able to exit the program. Students frequently talk too softly for evaluators to determine their language ability, so just helping students understand what they sound like on a recording is helpful. For Mr. Hayden, working in a distance setting, it allows him to understand where students may have misunderstandings about pronunciation, grammar, etc and correct those things before they get to the AZELLA test.

Flipgrid is an excellent tool for this purpose, because it allows for closed captioning, typed text on screen, whiteboard, split screen with image, emoji/decorations, frames, filters, and more. This creative touch can help students express themselves in more depth. Additionally, there is a wealth of discussion prompts already available in Flipgrid in the Discovery tab, created by other teachers and content organizations (Smithsonian, Wonderopolis, Minecraft, Epic, Equal Justice Initiative, and more). That is where we found the TELPAS topics for English language practice for the Texas language assessment. Of course, they are just as effective in Arizona as well!

If you want to learn more about using Flipgrid, here's a Wakelet collection I created about using Flipgrid in any content area and grade level, including special areas/electives. Thanks, Mr Hayden, for using

Flipgrid to let EVERY student have a voice!

~By Dierdre Shetler

In Ms. Cardenas' class, it becomes immediately apparent that all of her students are known and valued. Chrissy Cardenas is a 6th grade STEM/Science/ELA teacher at Estrella Middle School. When I walk into her face-to-face class, or digitally come in to her videoconference classroom, her students are all greeted personally, and many respond in kind.

One way Ms. Cardenas shows that everyone matters in a visual way is in her Google Classroom banner. At the beginning of the term, she had all students choose a picture that represented them in some way or another. They submitted these pictures and Ms. Cardenas compiled them all into one page. (This could be done in a variety of apps, like Google Slides, Google Drawings, Pic Collage, etc.)

An important thing to note in this case is that she made sure to keep it generally in the dimensions of the long rectangle of a Google Classroom banner. Here's a great post from Kasey Bell at ShakeUpLearning.com with specific directions on this. Be aware though: any custom image uploaded to Google Classroom for this purpose will have a gray overlay to allow for the text to still be readable, and it may change the theme color of your Google Classroom (color of icons, etc.). Looking for more ideas for building classroom community? Check out this episode of the Google Teacher Podcast.

I love that Ms. Cardenas used this activity because it helps students see that who they are is valued in the class, and is visible to all. It reminds me very much of the critical message of Angela Maiers, which is good for all of us to hear: You Matter. Thanks for making CSD83 a little more awesome, Ms Cardenas!

~By Dierdre Shetler

How were you greeted when you got to work this morning? In a face to face world, it might have been with a low-key, "Morning," or a slightly more upbeat, "Hey!" In our digital world, it probably just looked like cracking open the old laptop to a screenful of email.

If you were in Ms. Ashley Castañeda's kindergarten class at Davidson Elementary, not only would you have logged in to class on time, but maybe even early, because you wouldn't want to miss your own personalized good morning song, with your name in it! Every morning, as students join in her videoconference session, she sings this to each student with their own name inserted: "Delilah came to class today, we're so glad, we'll cheer hooray!" Ms. Castañeda said she learned this song from her Morning Meeting book.

According to Sara Hecht, an Instructional Support Specialist at her school, Ms. Castañeda "has truly built an environment that is welcoming, save, and enjoyable for her students." I think we can all agree that Kindergarten is an extremely challenging age to have to do distance learning, but these kinds of small touches are just the kind of things that motivate students to show up to class today to see what new things they will learn today.

There are many other small elements like this that can draw students in, like asking a "Would you rather" question for attendance, rather than just "Are you here?" or doing a little round of Show and Tell with a few students each day. Ms. Castañeda incorporates a "mystery picture" (or direct draw) at the end of each week, where the students have to guess what she's teaching them how to draw as they are doing it. Other teachers have done things like a private weekly check-in on Flipgrid, or a class joke-telling session at the end of every day. These things help build motivation, engagement, and community. So, what do your students look forward to each day?

~By Dierdre Shetler